Hell's Half Acre
by BamStroker
Summary: A strange viral strain has caused,yep you guessed it.. The zompocolypse. Just instead of the kick ass military trained dude you commonly see.. the hero is a simple human being, exciting eh? Oh and he's a diabetic/athsmatic smoker.this should be fun! yay!
1. Chapter 1: The Beginning

**Prologue.**

Midland is definitely not the vacationer's paradise by any stretch of the mind, it's a dinky little town, if you'd even call it a town, right in the middle of nowhere. The place is full of ghost stories and tales of devil worshipping cults out in the middle of the hundreds of cornfields throughout the landscape. Some of these stories are just little folk legends that none of the younger generations have ever seen any proof of but others.. Well others are another story entirely. Having lived in this little town my entire life I've heard and seen all there is to see here, but none of the ghosts and goblin stories that seem to haunt this place could've ever even come close to preparing me or the rest of the township for what was soon the befall us… Hell… not just us… but the rest of the world as we know it.

**Chapter 1: The Beginning**

Hearing the loud volume of the television from the living room echoing throughout the house, Cameron groggily raised himself out of bed and put his feet on the ground beside of him. He looked around himself as if forgetting where he was for a moment and reached over to his nightstand to grab his pack of cigarettes. He pulled a Camel Menthol from the pack and squeezed the filter until he heard that tale-tell "click" saying that the menthol bead within had burst and put it to his mouth lighting it with his purple miniBic. Looking up at his own T.V set he noticed that Nickjr's normally scheduled, annoying as hell, programs were playing instead of the Roseanne and The Nanny episodes he had previously watched as he fell asleep. "Thank God that shit's muted." he said to himself as he grabbed his phone to see if he had missed any calls. The call history was the same as it had been the night before so he slid it into his pocket so that when Katie, his fiancé, called he would hear it. He put out his cigarette and stumbled out of his room and down the short hallway that led into the adjoining Dining Room directly in front of you, Kitchen beyond that, and the living room to his left.

"Nic will you turn that shit down please?.. Dude you're 12.. Not 85.. Why do you need it that loud?" He asked his nephew.

"Just to piss you off I guess.." Nick retorted sarcastically.

Cameron gave a sarcastic laugh then grabbed Nic up by his shirt "I will hit a 12 year old man.. Anyway.. What's been going on bro?"

"Nothing much. Nobody's called.. Your lazy ass was asleep so I pissed on your cigarettes while you snored.. And then came in here to watch TV."

"Damn.. I thought something tasted funny about them.. Had that kind of douche-bag urine-esque quality to them."

"Ahaha fuuck you. Go take your insulin shot and eat something you diabetic asshole"

Laughing Cameron stepped into the kitchen and took his medicines and scrounged for something to eat. Finally settling on a pop-tart he walked into the living room and sat down to watch the movie that Nic was watching when he came in. They conversed and insulted back and forth with each other as was customary. Cameron had just taken his last bite when the house phone rang. Taken by surprise he reached for the phone and answered it.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Cameron?, Hey its your dad." his dad said.

"Oh hey dad, You okay? You sound like something just scared the shit out of you."

"Yeah, look, just listen to me. Have you seen the news at all today?"

"No, why?"

"Just lock all the doors and go to the office and grab your rifle…"

"Wait what?, What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Cameron just do it! There's a box of bullets up on the top shelf of the closet. Load the gun and keep it by you, and put something in front of the glass doors in the kitchen."

"Okay but what the hell is going on?"

"Some crazy shit is going down everywhere, you wouldn't believe me if I told you, put it on channel 14 and watch it.. I've got to go.. I'm on my way home and your Mom should beat me there. Don't let anybody else in until we get there."

"Okay.."

"I love you"

"I love you.. Too dad"

As Cameron hung up the phone Nic looked at him in confusion. Cameron jumped up and did exactly as he had been told. He grabbed his .22 Mauser Bolt Action rifle and began loading bullets. Nic came running in and asked what was going on.

"Look man, I don't know yet.. Just turn it to channel 14 in there and get ready to help me move that cabinet thing in front of the kitchen doors."

"Um, Okay man.."

"And tell me what they say on the news while I'm doing this."

Nic sped into the living room out of sight and moments later the gunfire and warfare from the movie they had previously been watching now turned to a different type of gunfire and warfare. He finished pushing the bullets down the shaft and put the rod into back into the loading mechanism locking it into place. He pulled the bolt back making sure he had chambered a round and ran into the living room. Setting the gun down he and Nic ran to the cabinets and began pushing them in front of the doors. After a few minutes of pushing it was done and they ran back into the living room to see what horror the T.V screen had to show them. They watched in awe as the gorey scenes displayed themselves and flashed by showing more and more of the carnage. Nothing was said between them save for the random "fuck", "Oh my god", and "Jesus christ" that slipped from their lips.


	2. Chapter 2: Family Reunion

**Chapter 2: Family Reunion**

After a few minutes of random video footage showing scenes that looked like they'd of come straight out of the next Romero movie, the anchorwoman finally came back onscreen. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat before finally reading what the teleprompters had for her to announce to the viewers. After what seemed like an eternity she began:

"_Good evening ladies and Gentlemen, I'm Heather Childers. As most of you have seen in our earlier breaking news reports, an epidemic of violence has erupted in the streets of many major cities along the east coast. The assailants seem to be in a complete rioter state of mind because they are unresponsive to both authority and loved ones on the scenes. The spread hasn't seemed to of affected the Charlotte area as of yet but has spread to the upper regions of the state. Cities affected by this outbreak as we have been informed is as follows: Asheboro, Asheville, Hickory, Greensville, and Raleigh. ..Wait.. This just in! Despite previous reports, both Charlotte and Concord have been confirmed as well. People in these areas are being told to remain indoors and lock themselves in. We're going live now to our reporter in the field Becky Bereiter. Becky?"_

"_Thank you Heather. As you can see behind me the police forces are doing everything they can to put an end to these riots. They've called in the SWAT and riot teams to aid them in bringing the rioters under control. No one yet knows why these outbreaks are occurring but we have Sgt. Johnston here of the CMPD to tell us his thoughts on the matter. Sergeant Can you tell us what started this here?"_

"_Well we thought at first they were race riots, until we started noticing how brutally the assailants were attack anyone and everyone no matter what race or whether they were of authority or not. At this point we're not quite sure. But we are getting the situation under control as we speak."_

"_Do you have anything else to add Sergeant?"_

"_No, now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to doing my job."_

As the newscasters and reporters continued on with their stories, we just sat there. Of course the Cop said they had it under control but we saw the carnage behind them and in the pictures and footage reels they had been showing prior. This was all but under control. Nic finally looked over and said

"Bam, how long ago was it when your dad called?"

"I don't know man.. Maybe half an hour ago. Why?"

"I'm worried as hell.. What if they don't make it here?"

"Its okay man, they'll be here.."

But before I could finish my sentence my mom pulled into the driveway, as I ran and opened the door I saw my dad and brother right behind her. They all got out of their cars and hurriedly came in, locking the door behind them. My mom came in with my niece Brooklyn and they sat down at the table. Nic and Brook ran over to hug my brother and my dad went straight to his office to pull out a few guns.

"Mom, what the hell is going on out there?"

"I don't know Cameron. I just got a call from your dad tellin' me to come back here as fast as I could."

Before I could respond the phone rang. I quickly ran to answer it. It was Katie.

"Baby, are you okay?"

Katie's voice greeted me crying and scared.

"No, my mom just called me. She said she was on her way home but.."

"But what honey? What happened?"

"But the phone started going to static and I heard her scream but the line went dead.. And now she won't answer!"

"We're coming to get you Katie, get yours and the baby's things ready.. Pack as much stuff as you can and I'll help you load it as soon as I get there."

"What's going on?"

"No time for that right now, get ready and I'll explain later."

"But Cameron.. Please tell me.."

"Katie Now! We don't have time. Please!"

"Okay Okay, I love you."

"I love you too baby. I'll be there soon."

"Okay bye"

"Mom we got to go get Katie and the baby. Katie just called crying and I think something happened to her Mom. We got to bring them here so they won't be alone over there."

"Okay get your shit ready.. And damnit Cameron.. You tell that girl if she's applyin make-up when we get there, Imma kick her ass!!"

"Only you mom.. Could get mad about something like that at a time like this.."

"Well am I wrong?!"

"Touché"

With that I grabbed a pistol from my dad and we headed out. Its times like these that parental instincts kick in in major fuckin' overdrive. We drove down the road as carefully as we could, breaking the sound barrier while we did it, but carefully nonetheless. Things definitely looked strange out there. No people except a few who looked drunk just stumbling down the road. We made the ten minute drive, in around 4 or 5. Before I could get to my car my mom stopped me and said:

"Damnit I'm serious.. That girl comes out here with freshly applied make-up on her face, I'm gonna beat her ass when we get home."

I didn't even take the time to respond before I jumped out and headed up the stairs. I knocked on the door and in seconds Katie was there with all of their shit packed right behind her and by the luck of the draw, no make-up on her face. I ran in and grabbed the bags and we headed down quickly. I helped her buckle the car seat in and I sat in the back with my son. We drove on out of her neighborhood and onto the highway headed back to my house. It was luckily uneventful. We got there, unloaded and got inside the house. Aside from Katie's minor hysteria over the call from her mom everyone was in one piece. We all sat down to catch our breath so we could explain to Katie what was happening. But before we got too far along, my dad came into the room, his face white as a ghost.

"Turn on the news.."

Without question we did so. And within only an hour span the news had gone from utmost optimism, to defeat.

"_It has been confirmed.. Ladies and gentlemen.. It appears.. The riots could not be contained. Police and Military efforts to stop them have failed and it seems many of the latter mentioned have joined the ranks of these madmen.. These ghouls. Other military units have blocked the main roads and highway exits leading to and from the Charlotte area. It has also been confirmed these same precautionary measures have been taken in other major cities. They are not sure if the quarantine has sufficiently stopped the mobs from invading other townships outside of these cities, so for safety precautions you are being advised to barricade yourselves into your homes.. "_

As everyone sat there in silence, I, being the smart ass I am, looked at Katie, and said

"Or, you know.. We could just let them explain it instead.."

A/N: This is chapter 2.. Now I know the ending and overall flow is a tad unorthodox.. And I know many of you wouldn't believe my sarcasm would stretch even into the end of the world.. You would be wrong for that one.. But in any case I hope you've enjoyed this so far and chapter 3 is in the works as we speak. Reviews would definitely be appreciated. Thank you all for sticking with it thus far.


	3. Chapter 3: First Sighting

Chapter 3: First Sighting

**A few hours passed and the news kept repeating itself for a while. Only a few things changed and none of it was much worth talking about. Everyone began just talking amongst themselves. We continuously kept a check outside whilst on cigarette breaks. If we hadn't of seen it all on the News it honestly wouldn't of hit us any change had hit at all. The sun was setting early because of the oncoming winter and it caused a beautiful show of colors from fading sunlight cascading through the surrounding trees. The atmosphere itself was of an orange hue as it was on the few special occasions during the fall months. Katie and I sat, hand in hand just watching the sky darken as the sun set over its unseen horizon. She seemed to be doing a lot better in the past hour or so, although she still had her down moments, which who could blame her? She very possibly just had the last conversation with her mom that she ever would.**

"**I love you." Katie said to me as she leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. I turned and kissed her on the lips and said, "I love you too.". She smiled at me and said, "When are we getting married?". I smiled back, "Well hopefully soon, I just got my job at Wal-Mart and I'm saving up every bit of money I can. Granted the baby's needs come first. But still.. Hopefully soon.". "But Cameron… I told you before I don't need an expensive wedding… as long as I'm kissing you at that alter". I laughed and said "I know but I want to at least have you in the dress you deserve… plus… we can't forget about my purple tux… wouldn't be me you were marrying if I wasn't wearing SOMETHING like that.". She laughed "Very true.. You are such a dork.. You know that?". "Yep… and you love it!". She smiled at me again and turned back to the driveway and suddenly she screamed. **

"**What?!" I asked but didn't need to hear a response as I noticed someone walking down my driveway. They had a very strange limp to them and it wasn't until they got up close that I realized that their lips were missing, revealing their teeth in a wicked grimace. My dad burst through the front door with a .40 caliber Smith and Wesson pistol in his hand. "What happened?!" he asked and we just pointed at the shambling figure. He looked and for the second time that day he went ghost white. "Stop where you are, right fucking now or I'll blow your goddamn brains out!" he screamed. But the man just continued to limp towards us. "This is your last fuckin' warning! Step back or you're fuckin dead!". As it got closer more of its form came into view of the porch light we could see more of it's mangled appearance. "There's no way he's still alive…" I said as my dad gave his few second grace period for the guy to stop. When he didn't my dad pulled the trigger, and time began to crawl by slowly.. I could almost see the bullet exit the gun, fly through the air, and catch the thing just left of right between the eyes. "Holy shit dad!! You killed him!" I screamed as time came back to it's normal pace. Being the hard ass my dad is he just turned to me and said, "Well… He shoulda' fuckin' stopped when I asked him to now shouldn't he?". He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. The first sign showing that killing the man had done any damage at all. "Nobody… and I mean nobody… not this freak… not the freaks in Charlotte riotin' over God fuckin' knows what… are gonna come in my yard and hurt my family. I'll kill a hundred of em' with my bare goddamn hands if it comes down to it." he said as he flicked ash off the end of his cigarette. For someone with no military experience of any kind, my dad was one hell of a piece of work when it comes to shit like this. I'd always heard the stories of his fighting days, and how hard he had it growing up, and when his family abandoned him and took everything he had worked so hard for all his life, I guess he resolved that no one would take from him the only thing left that mattered, hell, the thing that mattered the most to him from the start: his family.**

**After a few moments of silence, I busted out laughing. Katie and my dad looked at me like I was crazy, which, who can blame them? A guy who should've been dead walked into our yard and my dad just shot him cold. **

"**What the hell's so fuckin funny Cameron?" My dad said.**

**I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, "I swear to God… and I mean, don't get me wrong… that was some fucked up shit if I've ever seen any. But you just shot that guy, Clint Eastwood, Gran Turino "Get off my fuckin' lawn!" style… and I guess it just hit me strange. My apologies Mr. Dirty Harry". He gave a slight smile, flicked his cigarette and walked on inside to explain what happened to everyone. All humor suddenly leaving me upon seeing the dead man laying there I looked at Katie and said, "Um.. Lets go smoke inside.. Fuck them if they don't like it.. But I'm not too terribly fond of being outside right now.". She nodded in agreement and we walked back inside. Luckily, after hearing the news, no one said anything about us smoking in the house. We just sat down at the table and listened as the others began asking us all questions.**

**A/N: Again, thank you all for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Next chapter should be up soon. Hell.. It may even be up in an hour… all depending on if the writing mood is still in me. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.. As you have hopefully enjoyed the others. Thanks again. Peace.**


	4. Chapter 4: The Truth Revealed

**Chapter 4: The Truth Revealed**

It took a while for us all to settle into a calm state of mind after the gung-ho killing of the man in the driveway. A few of us sat around the living room watching the news reports looking for anything new to surface, while the rest of us sat around in the kitchen just talking about anything we could aside from the aforementioned events.

"So Cameron…" My mom began. "I'm just gonna guess this wouldn't be a good time to tell you how much you need to quit smoking, would it?". I glared at her "No, as a matter of fact it wouldn't be.". She glared back at me and said, "Well, fuck you! Because either you quit or you go out and get your own fuckin' cigarettes. I'm not riskin' my life for you to go smoke yours the fuck away!" Everyone busted out laughing so I pulled a cigarette out of my pack and lit it while laughing, "Well… Thank God you bought a couple cartons before the shit hit the fan then, huh?!".

It was about this time when my brother yelled from the living room, "Hey!, They're comin' on with a special breaking report! Get in here!". As everyone ran to the living room, I heard the baby start crying. "I'll be in there in a minute, I gotta grab little one. He's up from his nap.". No one even shrugged in reply as their eyes and ears were glued to the screen before them.

I walked into the bedroom and picked Cameron James up off the bed. We left the bedroom and walked into the living room just as the report came onto the TV. I set him down so he could crawl around and play for a little bit and leaned on the back of the chair where my mom was sitting. The same anchorwoman from earlier came on-screen. She looked wide-eyed and frightened. She sat there for a few moments, gazing off seemingly to nowhere. The cameramen must've gotten her attention because she snapped her eyesight back over to the cameras in front of her. Her voice was shaky when she apologized and began her report:

"_Good evening… Ladies and Gentlemen. I'm Heather Childers. We come to you now with a breaking news report and we take you live now to our remote at the presidential press conference."_

The footage shifted now to the president in front of a podium. He stood staring out into the vast audience of reporters and waited for silence before he spoke. After one reporter was escorted out of the room for not silencing and then creating a disturbance, he began to speak:

"_Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, within these past couple days some strange events have taken this country by storm. We have confirmation based on reports nationwide, that this epidemic of sorts, seems to be some sort of viral strain…"_

A man in the attire of the typical secret service representatives walked up to the president and whispered something in his ear while handing him a stack of papers. The president thumbed over them and for a split second his jaw dropped. He quickly regained his composure and turned back to the microphone as the other man walked back behind the curtains.

"_Ladies and gentlemen… we have confirmation that we have lost contact with several cities around the country, and there are now confirmed attacks in other countries around the world as well. If you live in the city, we implore you to seek out one of the rescue shelters in your area. Your local news stations will provide listings for various ones in your location. The military has sent both medical and defense teams to look over these such buildings. We ask that you stay away from the infected people you come into contact with. Do not try to reason with them, they are unresponsive and extremely violent. The virus seems to be spread by direct contact with the infected including but not limited to: Scratches, Bites, and contact with infected blood to open or healing wounds…"_

Seconds later the man walked back out and whispered something else to the president. This time the color drained from his face, but he gave no indication he intended to try and bring it back. He stared out over the audience momentarily before speaking again. And when he did it show America, how human he really was. The president being the icon of hope, even in the darkest times, seemed hopeless himself. After realizing what he was doing he again regained his composure, or to the best of his abilities at least. He cleared his throat and began speaking again:

"…_It uh… It seems that it has been confirmed… The de…"_ He stammered and loosened his tie. He cleared his throat and tried again.

"_It has been confirmed… the recently dead are coming back and attacking the living. Martial law has been declared in majority to this country. You are no longer allowed to occupy your residence, no matter how well barricaded or stocked. Again we ask you to make your way to the nearest rescue station, you will be safe there. We have recalled ALL military units over seas to help eradicate this problem…."_

If he said anything after that, none of us knew. We were all dumbfounded. After a few minutes the pictures on the screen shifted back to the news station as they began listing rescue stations. But because of how rural Midland was, and the fact that all major cities bordering it had been quarantined, none were listed for us. It was almost as if we didn't even exist anymore… We were now a backwater island afloat in a sea walking death. The only way out was through the carnage. Our only hope would've been the small town of Locust, which is right beside Midland, but no rescue stations were even there. The world was falling to pieces all around us, but there was no Calvary to come save us from drowning in it. We sat in silence as we all thought the same thing.

We're on our own…

A/N: Again.. Please review! Let me know what you think thus far… Hope you enjoyed this chapter and how the fatal "the dead have risen" line was delivered. But the new chapter is in the works and it'll be up shortly. Thanks again everyone who read, and remember… Anonymous reviews are more than welcome.


	5. Chapter 5: First Wave

**Chapter 5: Under Siege/Dose of Reality**

We kept the news on the T.V. mostly as background noise. There wasn't much other information we could make use of after learning what we had. After the president confirmed the dead were walking, and the anchorwoman proceeded shortly after to explain that the only means of permanently incapacitating the dead was to remove the head or to destroy the brain, we concluded we could figure it out from there. Everyone that smoked, now smoked openly in the house, even my brother began sparking up his bowl from time to time. We kept up with small conversations amongst each other to stave off our inevitable fears of the current and seemingly everlasting situation. My brother and I began cracking jokes back and forth trying to lighten the mood.

"Well Sluggs, to be honest I don't think this situation's gonna affect us as much as y'all keep saying it will." I said to him.

"The fuck do you mean?" he retorted.

"Well Midland was full of dumb asses who smelled and looked like they were dead already anyway!… and hell, half of 'em were drug addicts too… never would've thought a zombie could get much more realistic than a crack-head…" I said back.

He laugh and started to say something when we heard a banging noise at the window, and the subsequent shattering of the window. Everyone jumped and looked over and one of those things had made it's way up to the living room window and was trying to come in. Then we noticed there were others behind it, along with some coming up the back porch. I ran into the living room and grabbed the baby before he could either be grabbed, or decide to get investigative… now wasn't the time for him to get curious. As I ran with him into the kitchen my dad yelled at me to grab a gun, so I handed the baby off to Katie and checked my rifle for a chambered round. As I heard the tale-tell click of the bullet being pushed by the bolt I went to run into the living room when my dad reached back and handed me a .38 revolver.

"That damn thing ain't gonna do you no good up close." he said.

"Where the fuck are we going man? I though we were shooting his dead ass from in here!"

He looked at me in a dead stare, "We are taking HIM out from in here.. But what about the 10 or 15 more outside and possibly more up the driveway?" I just nodded understandingly as he continued, that's how you had to be with him. "You bring the rifle with you because I want you to take any out coming down the driveway… we're gonna end this shit 'for it gets any worse.", he said while in one swift motion he quickly aimed, fired, and successfully killed the zombie trying to climb through the window. As soon as that happened he was moving towards the front door, I looked over at Katie and noticed she and the baby were crying. They were scared shitless, but so was I. I wanted to make them safe again, so despite the fear, I continued following my dad, as my brother came out right behind me. There were three milling around on the porch, trying to figure out a way around the porch swing to my window. My brother shot twice and only hit once, my dad on the other hand took out the remaining two and kicked one in the face who advanced on him from the steps.

I pulled the rifle up to my eye and aimed it up the driveway. There were 5 coming down it, and another 3 coming from around the back side of the house. I started shooting the ones up front and took out the 3 of them while my dad took the others out that were closer to us. I was about to put the last bullet into the last head when we heard my brother start yelling. We turned around to see him fighting with a zombie that was almost twice his size. He was successfully holding the thing's jaws back from himself but the beast was gaining leverage fast. My dad went to shoot it but clicked empty. I pulled my gun out as fast as I could and tried to put a bead on the thing's head, but the way they were fighting, my brother was in the way.

"Sluggs, move your fatass head out of the fuckin' way man!" I yelled, but he couldn't respond. It was taking every ounce of energy just to keep this thing a couple of inches away from his face. I finally managed to put the zombie's forehead into my sights when a shot rang out from behind me. The zombie dropped and so did our bowels into our pants. I looked back to see my mom standing there with a gigantic revolver I had never seen before. "Y'didn't think y'all was the only ones who could use a gun now did y'all?", she asked.

We all just stared at her in surprise. "Get the fuck back in this house before I shoot one of y'all for bein' so fuckin' stupid!" At that we ran back into the house. We all sat down panting and in disbelief of how many of them showed up so fast. We reloaded our guns and set them down beside us. Everyone started talking at once, and I tried picking up on there words but it all seemed blurred together. I tried to talk but could only speak in slurred ramblings. Then suddenly after the room began to spin, everything went black.

I woke up in my mom's bed with Katie sitting beside me.

"Hey babe… The hell happened to me? How long was I out?" I asked.

"A while… probably an hour or two… you passed out the first time and we got you up… we think your blood sugar was low, we made you eat something then let you sleep… you scared me babe… how you feelin'?"

"I'm fine babe… 'cept my head hurts like hell… did I hit it on anything?"

"Yeah, the table and the chair… you kind of just flopped over and bounced off one and hit the other…" she said while suppressing a laugh.

"For one thing… you're a douche… secondly… has anything happened since I've been out?". "Well not an extreme amount, they said they were wanting to discuss something but would wait 'til you got up.. I think its something about trying to find a more secure place to go." she replied. "Well… I guess its time to get started discussing… we can't have another attack like that happening… We got lucky that no one was hurt… run in there and tell 'em I'm up and I'll be in there in a minute… I gotta piss first."

With that she kissed me on my forehead and walked out of the room. I got up and walked into the bathroom. While I stood there I began staring out the window and saw 5 or so of those people trying to move through the trees towards our house. Luckily the massive ravine separating them from us was enough to slow them down. But we would have to deal with them once they got close enough. This was shaping up to be one hell of a day… literally.

A/N: I would like to thank the readers for bearing with me on this story. I appreciate the solitary review… but c'mon man… let's keep this shit up! You know the system! You review me, I continue writing and feel special while doing it. Let me know what you think thus far. And to those who have stuck with the story since it's initial posting, thank you. To the others thank you also… just a little less… cuz you're less cool than they are… okay I'm done being a douche, and in all truth I appreciate ALL readers… and hopefully you're looking forward to the next chapter as much as I am.


	6. Chapter 6: Tickets To The Gun Show!

A/N: I know its been a while, but I've been busy as hell. Here are two new chapters for you guys, hope you like them!, I'll hopefully be updating more often in the coming future. So keep an eye out!

**Chapter 6: Tickets To The Gun Show**

After I got myself cleaned up I walked back into the kitchen and saw that everyone was sitting down discussing something amongst themselves. "So what's the plan? Since nobody could wait 5 fuckin' minutes for me to piss." I said with a laugh. No one said much of anything, until finally my dad looked up, "We plan on going to get some supplies and finding somewhere to hole up. We've got Roger's explorer and your mom's van, and then we got my pick-up. I figure we can go to Locust and see what's happenin' out there and maybe makin' a trip to the gas stations or somethin' .. But I figured since you watch all those god damned zombie movies all the time that you might have some better suggestions.". I laughed a little when I replied. "Well actually, I've got a couple ideas… since we're headin out there anyway… we should hit Key's Gun Shop, because every one of us needs to have at least one gun and know how to use it. If the old place is still fuckin standin… we could get as much ammo and guns as possible. Then, depending on how the Wal-Mart and Food Lion are doing we should probably hit those too. We ain't gonna find all the necessary supplies at a damn gas station. So now all we gotta do is figure out our riding situation. I know me, Katie and the baby will need to ride with Mom, since she has the car seat. The kids need to ride with Roger probably because if we need to get out and back into a car in a hurry, it wouldn't be such a good idea for them to be trying to get into the 3rd row seating in the van… with their slow asses we'd be dead by then.". Nic and Brook chuckled at that and flipped me off in unison which is customary to their style, and all in all everybody seemed to be in agreement what the plan should be. "Now first things first, Me, Roger and Dad need to go out there and take care of the immediate threat, while we're doing that, feed the kids and get everything ready to go. We need to leave here in no more than 20 minutes. Those people keep showin up quicker than we can show em' the door.".

We went outside and took care of the zombies quickly and surprisingly without issue. We got everybody and everything loaded up and got on the road. My dad was in the lead of our little entourage, so to speak, and in about ten minutes time we were halfway to our destination, just passing the county line. The trip was strangely without incident. The crossroads were completely vacant, it was weird. There was no one manning the gas stations, it didn't seem anyone had even attempted leaving the town., which I guess was good for us at the moment but it was still creepy as shit. We got into Locust and from where we rode it was just as dead as Midland has been, no pun intended. It was clear people had left, some were still boarded in their homes and such, but there was no one on the road anymore. Normally in the movies, even the smallest towns had gridlock traffic, dead people walkin' everywhere, and marauders shooting survivors for a scrap of fucking cheese. But nothing moved except us. We pulled into the parking lot of Key's Gun shop and noticed the door was wide open. Me, My dad and My brother took our pistols and checked the place out. The two owners were there, but only in body. They had killed themselves on the floor of the building. A bullet hole in each head showed us that. We dragged the bodies into the back room and covered the spot with some gun rags they had laying around behind the counter. We looked around the selection and saw that nothing had been looted. Hell the guns they used to shoot themselves had been their personal fire arms. My brother went outside to get the kids so they could come in and help look around, and carry things. My mom just asked us to pick her up something nice so she could play with the baby while we "shopped". Katie ended up coming in too. The plan was if anything reared its ugly head outside, my mom was to blow the horn and we were to haul ass. Me and Katie looked around at the selection, I picked myself out a pump-shot gun, the scoped carbine I had had a woody for since I first laid eyes on it a year ago, two .40 caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic hand guns, and a small sneak-a-shot .22 revolver. My motto quickly became, "Expect the best, Prepare for the worst."… And there were dead people walking around the fucking world… Where's the best I'm supposed to expect? Katie loaded herself up with a few guns and everybody else picked themselves out something nice, after that we loaded all the ammo we could carry and loaded it all up. We pulled out to the left and went to the Food Lion parking lot. It seemed pretty vacant except for a few people's cars, with their doors hanging open, and one of which had a disembodied hand clutching the handle. We pulled up to the front and decided to make it as quick as possible. The same lineup of us went inside the Food Lion, and we each carried guns, just in case. Which we were glad we did. Something was expecting us…


	7. Chapter 7: Clean Up On Aisle 6!

**Chapter 7: Clean Up On Aisle 6!**

We didn't make it far into the store before we got ambushed from behind by four of the things. One of them grabbed Katie by the arm and was trying to drag her towards its mouth, chomping its teeth together as it did. "Help me!" she yelled trying to fight it off of her, but the thing had a vice grip on her. I ran over and knocked it off of her and went to pull my pistol, but it sprung at me with speed I didn't know they had. It knocked the gun from my hand and as I was fighting for leverage the other three stumbled around the corner. "Katie, grab my gun and shoot this son of a bitch!", she grabbed the gun and went to aim but her hand was too shaky. "I can't, I'm scared I'll shoot you!.". I kept struggling with the thing and finally I got it kicked off of me, I grabbed the gun from Katie and blew its brains out before it had a chance to stand back up. We took care of the other 3 without much problem. Roger made the kids go back to the truck, he thought it was too risky for them to be here. After we made sure they were safe we paired off and took two buggies a team to find whatever we could. Me and my dad hit the cigarette counter and took every carton of every brand we knew we could smoke. We also grabbed up lighters, matches, rolling papers, and rolling tobacco. After that we hit the medicine aisle and began grabbing all the basic essentials, plus anything we may end up needing. Over on one of the other aisles my brother and Katie were grabbing up any non-perishables and/or things that would last a while and was low maintenance cooking. They grabbed a small charcoal grill and a bag of charcoal that had been put out for some kind of store special, for football season or something, just in case we'd need it., "Wow… Lucky fuckin' break," My brother said, "I used to hate football… but hell because of it, I won't have to eat no cold Spaghetti-O's!". We stocked up on paper towels, toilet paper, tampons and Midol, (remember… women are with us... Call it what you will, we're just fuckin considerate!), and all the other essentials you'd see on any other survival grocery list… granted I'm sure Monster energy drinks, Cigarettes, and DVDs aren't exactly essential, but hey, who's askin'?

We went outside in time to see a few of the creatures entering the parking lot, so we loaded up and hit the road as quickly as possible. As we rode along we looked over at the Wal-Mart parking lot and saw that it also only had a few cars. As we pulled in we spotted what appeared to be people, not dead people… but people!. We pulled around and a big burly man wearing a flannel shirt with a beard and a trucker hat waved to us. We rolled the windows down and asked what was going on. "Name's Donnie friend!, me and a couple of my compadres decided we'd try and hole up in the Wal-Mart, you guys are more than welcome to join us! Hell, we'd insist! We need all the help we can get.". It was then that it seemed things were finally seeming to turn in our favor, we all seemed to agree with the plan so we got our things and we headed inside. Hell, maybe things won't be so bad after all…


	8. Chapter 8: Welcome To Walmart

**Chapter 8: Welcome To Wal-Mart**

After our meeting with Donnie outside we parked the cars and began unloading. "Y'all may wanna hurry up, my friend Phil up on the roof just spotted a bunch of them things comin this way!" Donnie yelled at us from the door as they were moving the barricade aside for us to get in. We grabbed everything we had pretty quickly because we didn't have very much, and most of that was just guns and ammo. We herded inside and the others started rebuilding the makeshift barricade they had up. The barricade was actually a pretty good one. They had some empty shelving units against the doors themselves, someone was drilling holes in the floor so that they could bolt them in. They had moved all of the vending machines into the actual store so they could be plugged in and still used because after the monster of a barricade they had, they brought down the metal grating doors normally brought down when a store is closed. Which actually got me thinking… Wal-Mart is 24 hours right?… if they don't close, then why would they need those doors? I was in the midst of this process of stupidity when Donnie walked up and asked for our names. After we introduced ourselves he introduced the rest of his group, which consisted of a guy that looked like Donnie if Donnie wasn't fat, his name was Earl, a woman introduced as Earl's wife named Patricia, A tall, lanky dude with long hair, a handlebar mustache and a trucker hat wearing flannel, a white tank top and old ass blue jeans, his name was name was Greg but he told everybody to just call him Cheese. Donnie then told us that Phil, Sidney, and Rick were up on the roof keeping watch. "So what brought y'all round these parts?" Said Cheese. "We're glad to have ya, don't git me wrong. But y'all bout got left outside, cuz once we bolted down them shelves and welded em down, we couldn't of let y'all in if we tried. So y'all got here just in the nick of time." I looked over to him, "Thanks for helping us out. We had the same plan as you did, well not at first. We came from Midland… that's where we live, well most of us anyway. My brother here lives about a mile away off of Reed's Gold Mine road over on Hartsell." Just then Cheese interrupted me. "Ah hell, I know Slugger, we met over at Sidney's house one night. How the hell you been man?" My brother walked over and shook his hand. "I been good.", Cheese shook his hand and said "Well hell don't you remember me?" my brother thought it over for a minute, "Yeah, but if we met at Sidney's chances are I was drunk off my ass. So I don't remember much, my bad.". Cheese laughed and said "Well fuck man, I didn't remember you til, your brother said somethin. I feel you man its cool. Well y'all go settle in, just go pick yourselves out your own places. We'll meet up later.". Before anyone could walk away I spoke up, "Wait, first off have you guys swept this place yet?". Cheese laughed. "Well I figured considering there's dead people walkin that you guys wouldn't mind a little dirt on the floor!", I laughed too and said "No I mean did you check it for any of those things?". Cheese stopped laughing and the look on his face told me he hadn't thought of that. "We need to do that as soon as possible, we'll go ahead and unload and do a small check while we do that, but we need to check every room, you never know man." He nodded and said "How the fuck do you know all this man?" Laughing I said, "Dude… name a zombie movie, I've seen it." After that we both laughed the joke off and let things settle. We started to walk away when my brother stopped and asked if the Sidney on the roof was the same one they both knew, and it was. So he opted to go up to the roof once they picked their place out. I told em I'd go with em, so I could scope everything out. Me, Katie and the baby set up our place in Automotive in the very back corner of the store. We wanted protection and privacy, and considering there were aisles blocking off all sides except some in the front, we thought it was the safest place. I left a gun with Katie and went to walk off, but she stopped me. I noticed she was shaking, but not nervousness or fear, she was pissed. "Baby, whats wrong?", She hugged me and looked in my eyes, "I know I acted like a pansy in the store and I'm sorry, you of all people know that isn't me, I don't know why it happened, all I know is it won't happen again. I'm pissed at myself and all, but I'll get over it, just don't worry about me ever losing my shit like that again.", I was shocked at how quickly her attitude had changed, granted Katie has never been shy, or a pansy in any way before, but I figured she was probably upset over her mom or something. After that she hugged me again, and said she loves me and went back to setting things up. I walked up onto the roof, rifle in hand, with my brother to see how bad this shit was gonna be. They said there was a big group comin' well luckily I had my long range with me and I was gonna thin me some numbers. It was time to go zombie huntin'…

A/N I wanna thank everyone for the reviews and for the guy from Charlotte, I don't know if you've been to Midland and Locust before, more than likely you have, but hopefully I'm able to paint a good picture of the surroundings for you. Anyway, Keep the reviews and love comin, it helps me write what you wanna read!


	9. Chapter 9: Zombie Huntin'

**Chapter 9: Zombie Huntin'**

After we finished setting up our respective areas, Katie ended up joining us on our trek up to the roof. We left the baby with my mom and dad on their insistence. We brought along our rifles and a side arm because we had been given the task of checking the warehouse and back rooms for any lurkers on our way up. Katie brought along her shotgun, while me and Junior brought our two pistols each. Most of our search yielded little until we checked out the warehouse. We had found a few things in the other rooms, some useful, some not, and some just fuckin' weird. We found a shit load of first aid kits in the employee lounge, more vending machines, and some cleaning supplies that if not used for cleaning could definitely be used for some nasty ass Molotovs off the roof or something. But as we entered the last room in the little backroom hallway, we found a boiler room that looked like it had been made into an apartment. Granted I'd seen this shit before in movies and more than likely it was just the janitor or something, what startled us was the blood soaked rags in the trash can. So the question begged a response, was he still in the store? And if he was still here… was he infected?.

We left the room and walked on down to the door of the warehouse building. As we walked through the doors we heard something behind some of the boxes. We didn't want to give up our position, so we crept along around the boxes. As we were rounding the corner a mop handle flew around and slammed into my skull, I fell down, and went to shoot but everyone started yelling for me not to. When I looked up it was an old man in a Janitor's coveralls. He helped me up and apologized to me, "I'm sorry about that, just don't sneak up on me like that no more!"… Then with a sigh he calmed down a bit, "My name's Otis. I'm the janitor of this fine establishment.". I shook his hand, "Cameron, friends call me Bam, so is that your room we found in the boiler room?". "Yeah… that it is… Some crazy shit goin' on outside this place, luckily ain't none of em made it inside here yet. I thought they had though… S' why I bout knocked your head off boy…". I nodded and said "Then why were their bloody rags in the trash can?", "I got up this morning to do my usual stuff when I saw what was on the T.V. So when I went to put the cleanin' stuff up I knocked a bottle of cleaner off the cart and slipped in it and cut my arm up somethin fierce on my screw driver.. But I cleaned it up and bandaged it real good, what you think one of them things came in here and bit my ass off?". I laughed and told him we were just checkin' to be safe. "Well Otis, if you want, a bunch of us have set up our living quarters in the store, we've barricaded the place up real good. Beats stayin back here by yourself man.". He thought it over for a minute, "Well I do thank you for the offer, but I don't see much sense in changing my livin' situation. But I would be glad to have your company. I'll just sleep back here and stuff because at times I do like my privacy, but I'm sure cabin fever'll set in every once in a while. But you guys ever need help, just holler. I'm gonna go back in my room and take a nap… too much excitement for these old bones today." We bid him farewell and made our way on up to the roof. We got up there and met Phil and Rick, and said our hellos to Sidney. We walked on over to the edge of the roof and looked below, there was a group of 50 or so walking into the parking lot from all angles. I know in the movies they make that out to be nothing, but it made me about shit. I had only seen about 10 of them total, this was a pretty big fuckin' change. Judging by the fact there were about 20 laying down and shell casings on the roof, I figured the three guardsmen had already had some fun. "Well, they're not gonna kill themselves…" I brought Katie over in front of me, "Alright beautiful, lets see how good a shot you are, we sure as hell can practice now.", She pulled the gun up, took aim at one and shot, and she blew its fuckin' brains out." I was surprised, not that I thought she wasn't gonna be able to, but I've never seen anybody be that good their first time shooting, especially at long range. "Hm… I didn't expect that at all." I said, She kind of laughed and said "Neither did I, but that was fun, can I do it again?", "Your gun babe, you got a box of ammo with you, have a blast with it I guess." Granted I know maybe I should've been concerned on some level, but I know Katie, and what she told me downstairs… I knew she meant that. This, being an avenue of doing what she said she was going to do, is normal for Katie, especially considering we've been ready for the zombie apocalypse for years. I got my rifle out and started shooting too. By the end of two hours the ones in the parking lot were dead for good. But we saw more cresting the horizon coming out of Oakboro and the more residential districts in that direction. Granted we were doing good so far, hadn't lost anyone, none of us were infected, but this was still day one. God only knows whats to come. I remember looking down the scope of that rifle, into the face of every one of them I shot, hell I knew most of them. Yeah, I had some scores to settle with a few of em and like anybody else who gets fucked over said, "I'm gonna fuckin' kill you…" at some point or another, but I never actually thought I'd need to. Regardless of that though, we do what we need to do to survive, and I fully fuckin' intend to do so.

A/N: Hello everyone!, thanks again for the reviews and shit… And to the girl from Charlotte, I apologize for the misinterpretation of your gender lol, I'm a douche. But that aside, I hope you've enjoyed this installment, there's more to come.. Maybe even tonight.. Hmm.. We'll see.


	10. Chapter 10: The Good Life

**Chapter 10: The Good Life**

After our first target practice on the roof a few days ago we've decided to lay low and enjoy things for a little while. We played video games, watched movies, the kids raided the toy aisles, we all got changes of clothes, and we got drunk on occasion. Every now and then Otis would come out from the back and visit for a little while, drink a couple of beers, or watch a movie, but mostly he played with the kids. Said his grand kids had moved with their parents to New York and hadn't seen them in a couple of years, but he loved kids, and hell the kids loved him. Anyway though, we kept checks on the news whenever we could, on the radios or on the one TV that had a Satellite hook up. Nothing new, every day another city or part of the world fell to the things, but nothing useful. The second day of the outbreak the "Safety Shelters" were all out of commission, and from our trips up to the roof we saw how. They were everywhere. Not just in the parking lot, granted there were a shit load in the parking lot, but through binoculars and rifle scopes we could see hundreds and hundreds just walking around the town itself. On that first day we ended it with a zombie-death toll of about 200. The amount outside had doubled.. Maybe even tripled. Some had started banging on the doors, and it seemed every day more and more knew we were in here. If only it were only the zombies who knew we were in here.

We had set up our entertainment station in electronics, considering it made the most sense. All of us except for Donnie, Sidney, Phil, and Rick were hanging out there. I was playing Modern Warfare 2 with Nic when Sidney came running over to us. "Hey guys, there's some people down there! Live ones! They shot Phil!". We were all shocked, just a few seconds ago we were having the time of our lives, it seems even in the times we escape reality, death always seems to find its way back in, Phil was our first casualty. As soon as we heard, me and anyone who knew how to use a gun were getting ready to get up to the roof. The kids stayed with my mom and Cheese and Donnie opted to stay behind and protect them. We got up to the roof and we saw Rick holding his brother as he bled out in his arms, trying to tell him it would be okay. "Okay…" I said quietly, but loud enough for them to hear, "We need to get over there and check the situation, Long rifles spread out and try to get a bead on our situation below.". My dad looked at me and said "Who the fuck died and made you Sergeant?", I quickly retorted "Damn near everybody, just do what I'm saying please". We all spread out at the edge except for Rick, who was still consoling Phil, and Roger who was trying to help stop the bleeding.

As soon as I got to the edge I saw that there were 3 Humvees, and about 12 people inside of them, one sticking out of each roof with a long rifle except the one in the front, he had a bullhorn. "We need a place to hole up! And we ain't much for company! Get the fuck out of the building or we'll take it our god damned selves. It don't matter to us if you live or not!" He started laughing after he said that. Apparently that pissed my dad off because the guy's laughter got cut short when a bullet hole appeared in his throat and he fell out of the Hummer. "Take that by force you shit lickin' son of a bitch!" my dad yelled down to him. For a second everything went silent. Then as quickly as the calm came the silence was invaded by a volley of gunfire. We ducked down and shot periodically, but whoever it was down there had automatic weapons. We killed all of them in one of the Jeeps and two in one of the others. But before we could reload and start shooting again the dumbass in the forward humvee tried driving it into the front of the store. Luckily our reinforcements held somewhat, and he trashed his hummer. We reloaded and took out the rest of them before they knew what happened. The only problem was that where the jeep had hit, apparently our barricade hadn't held as well as it seemed. Zombies were beginning to climb in through the opening. Luckily the steel gates were down so we had some time to get down there and solve the problem, but how the fuck were we gonna close that hole up before too many of them got in? We got up and started to run when we heard a scream. We had forgotten all about Phil. Rick sat still holding Phil, now screaming because Phil was trying to make a fuckin Scooby snack out of his brother. We got over to him and tried to pull him off but he fell over onto Sidney. We finally got his head up to shoot him after a minute or two of struggling. We tried to get Rick to come with us but he refused, and on our way down we heard a gunshot ring out. Casualty Number two.

As we got downstairs we got Donnie to run to the front with us. Katie was one of the first to reach the front and she started shoving her shotgun barrel through the holes in the grating and blowing the fuckers apart. We all kept shooting but there were too many of them. They just kept pouring in. "We've gotta get the fuck out of this place!, Somebody pack some bags, we'll stay up here and fend em off, we head out the back and commandeer that hummer and a couple of cars and get the fuck out of here in 10 god damned minutes!" My dad yelled.

Sidney and Cheese ran to the back of the store and started packing the duffle bags we had set aside in just such an occasion. 5 were empty, one was filled with my meds, enough to last me a while. They got all the canned food and basic first aid and med supplies they could find quickly and packed each bag to the point that they were still carry-able but almost bursting. Once we packed our shit we all headed to the back of the store.

The idea was to send 4 people out to find a car a piece and bring them over to the side exit door in back. Most of the zombies were either inside or trying to get there, most of the parking lot by this point was only showing scattered amounts of zombies. My Dad, Donnie, Sidney, and My Brother went out. Donnie came back with the hummer, which cheese and two of the duffel bags went with him, my dad came up to the loading dock with his truck and we loaded wooden pylons of canned food into the back of it, while my brother and Sidney had brought my mom's van around. Me, My brother, Katie and the Kids piled into the Van, my mom got into the truck with my dad, and Sidney, Donnie and Cheese all got into the Humvee. We got out of the parking lot with relative ease, got out onto the highway, and started driving. We heard a beep come from up front, and saw my brother had a Walkie Talkie. My dad, who led the entourage, came to life on the radio. "Where the fuck are we going?", my brother replied with, "Head towards Concord.."

With that we continued on in relative silence, all of us wondering where we were going to end up. All the pictures of Concord showed us that the destruction had taken its course… most everyone was either dead, dying or undead. But where we lived we had nowhere else to go, it was a choice of which population center we wanted to go to… we opted for the one we knew best. I opened the window a little and lit a cigarette. As we drove through midland this time, the death and destruction was all too apparent. There was little in Midland before… but now there was nothing… just burned out buildings and walking dead people. I don't know what was more depressing about it, the fact that my home was gone, or the fact that it didn't look much different gone than it did when it was alive.

A/N: I know a lot of things got kind of squished together in this chapter but I'm not the type that likes the characters to have it cushy for too long lol. I want them on the run the majority of the time. So I hope you liked it, thanks for the reviews, the next chapter will be here soon.


	11. Chapter 11: On The Road Again

**Chapter 11: On the Road Again.**

We left Wal-Mart behind us and continued on down the road. We passed through Midland and continued on down 601. We drove past houses and open fields, and despite what the fuckin' movies say, rural areas are no less infested than the cities, in fact I have lived here all my life and didn't know this many people were even close to us. We saw boarded up houses with zombies banging away at the defenses, a few had already been infiltrated and those inside were either being dragged out or had already been and pieces of them littered their's and their neighbor's yards.

The old roach motel all the real rednecks of Midland had inhabited once, twice, or just never left, was burning to the ground, and those aforementioned inhabitants either littered the parking lot or were stumbling on the roads or down into the neighborhoods. Speaking of the neighborhoods, they were burning down too. After that we drove on for a few miles without incident considering there was not much in these areas even before the dead rose. It wasn't until we got away from the real country parts of 601 and up near the volunteer fire station that we saw much of anything transpiring, in fact you would've figured it was just a normal Sunday afternoon, you know, aside from the dead people.

After we passed the fire department, we started noticing that there were cars on the sides of the road with their doors hanging wide open, blood pooled outside of some, others just abandoned. We had thought about maybe trying the Food Lion but as we saw, someone else had that same idea apparently and failed, there were hastily built, and seemingly more hastily destroyed, barricades in front of the doors. Zombies were everywhere. It was at that moment I had remembered a story I had tried writing years ago when I was in High School about a way to use the school building by holing up in the Library, but as we road over the crossover bridge taking 601 over 29, I saw smoke and flames rising up from that direction.

We continued to drive on and we passed by the Bi-Lo, which hadn't been used as a hideout, but was just as broken by looters than anything the zombies could even begin to throw at it. Even the video store was looted, and the thought occurred to me, "Who the fuck loots a video store during a zombie outbreak while they're on the run?". We drove onward passing apartment complexes that were under siege, equipment rental businesses, and a driving range, finding nothing. Whatever we were looking for we hadn't found it yet.

We got a call on the Walkie Talkie telling us to pull into the Walgreens parking lot with them so we could figure out the situation. We pulled in and got parked. Everyone got out of the vehicles and stretched their legs, those of us who smoked lit cigarettes, and looked around. There were no zombies in sight but it was getting dark out, so we decided to check the Walgreens out, and maybe we could hole up there until day break.

"Alright, first things first everybody, we need to send some people in to check the place out, send em in with one of the Walkie Talkies. If shit happens out here, we hit em up and they haul ass out here so we can get the fuck out of dodge, or if they sweep the place real good, then we can go on and start unloadin' shit we might need that they might not have in there." My dad told everyone standing about. We got our team of volunteers together which was Me, My Brother, Sidney, and Donnie. Katie opted to stay outside with the baby because she didn't want my parents to have to baby sit again. We snuffed out our cigarettes and headed on inside. By this point my asthma started catching up with me so I grabbed my inhaler from the car just in case I needed it.

We each brought a shotgun and at least a pistol, (Me being the only one with two pistols.) because there was no need to bring long range weapons on a short range fight. When we got up to the door we had to pry it open with a crowbar my brother had been smart enough to bring with him, and we stepped inside. The lights were off in the store so we sent Sidney back for a couple flashlights. He brought them back and we went on farther inside the store.

As we moved farther we weren't hearing much movement, there were at least 2 in the store, but there wasn't a fuck load or anything like that. We found the first one by the Photo counter, and I shot it in the head with my pistol. "Okay, we need to find the breaker box and find out if there's any power here at all, if not we'll just have to make sure to check shit out real good before we give the okay." I said to them as we walked on. We walked around the aisles by way of the refrigerated section so we could make sure to have plenty of room for leverage in case we got jumped by anything. We walked to the very back to the door that led to the bathrooms, and found the breaker box right inside the door. We started flipping the switches and the lights came on just fine, "Thank fuckin' God!" My brother said, as we were flooded with light, "What you scared of the dark or somethin' Rogina?" I asked my brother while laughing. He flipped me off and said "Fuck you bitch.". It was then that we heard banging coming from the warehouse door. We walked around the corner and from the looks of it, 10 of those things were on the other side. And just when the words "Oh shit…" left my mouth, the doors open and more like 30 of them poured out of there.

"Run and shoot!" I yelled as we turned and ran, we kept firing and they kept dropping but it just seemed like more would take their places. We ran through the store and out the door, and they followed us the whole way. Once we got outside we yelled, "Fuckin' shoot!" and everybody that had guns started shooting. Once we cleared the zombies out I looked around and said "Where the fuck is Roger?". Sidney looked at me and said, "Last time I saw him we was inside man." So I took off running inside. A couple of the zombies were still inside and I either shot them or knocked them aside. "Roger! Where the fuck are you?" It was then that I heard a gurgling noise behind the secondary counter. I walked around it and saw my brother laying on the ground and a zombie on top of him. "You get the fuck off of him you motherfucker!" I screamed and shoved it off of him. He laid there, blood squirting out of his throat, gasping. I grabbed him and tried to stop the blood, "Don't you fuckin' die man!, God damnit you're not going to die! You fuckin' hear me?" He just laid there in my arms trying to breathe and failing. Finally he just laid still. Tears flowing from my eyes I remembered the zombie that I knocked off of him, I laid my brother down and got up. The zombie was just beginning to stand and I punched it in the face, knocking it over. "You son of a bitch! He has kids! He was my fucking brother!" I screamed while I just kept punching it, and slamming its head into the ground until it wouldn't move anymore. I was still doing this when my Dad pulled me off of it, "Cameron it's dead!… Leave it there!".. I broke out of his grip and walked outside, covered in that thing and my brother's blood. My mom was hysterically crying and my Dad trying to console her and the kids, nobody had anything to say. I heard something behind me and when I turned around, my brother was coming at me from the building. I grabbed my pistol, walked over and shot him in the head. As he fell to the ground I looked down on his body and wiped the tears from my eyes, "You'd of done the same for me man… you're luckier than anybody standing out here…" I closed his eyes and lit a cigarette. I stood there beside him for a long time just looking at him. Throughout my whole life he had been my guiding light. I looked up to him, hung out with him… he was like my best friend. I never thought I'd see him like this. Most people would be sad at the circumstances I faced… but I was angry… At him because he abandoned me… at the world for forcing it to happen… and at myself for not watching his back better than I had. It was then that Nic walked over to me and stood next to me. I realized that I was to Nic was Roger was to me. I put my arm around Nic's shoulder and said, "We'll make it through this…"

Nic just looked at me, and said, "Not if you don't teach me how to use his fuckin' gun we won't". I was dumbfounded… I didn't know whether to laugh or punch him in his fuckin face. But I realized that was always Nic's way of dealin' with shit… shove it aside, it can wait for another day. So I went inside, grabbed Roger's guns off the floor, cleaned them up and handed them to Nic. It was time he took over his dad's role, and I'd make damn sure I didn't fail him like I had my brother.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews, I've been trying to add new chapters daily, and sometimes multiple times daily… so I hope it is to your liking.. Anyway, keep the reviews coming.. I appreciate it.


	12. Chapter 12: Coping

**Chapter 12: Coping**

After everything that happened outside we moved Roger's body under a tree by the roadside, trying to at least give him a little bit of a peaceful rest since we didn't have time to dig him a grave. We said a few words over him and walked on inside, there was still work to be done.

Half of us dragged the bodies that were left strewn throughout the store from our firefight onto a stocking cart and rolled them outside to dump them so the smell wouldn't further fuck with us. I had smoked my last cigarette earlier and after everything we were doing I definitely needed one, so I walked over behind the counter and grabbed a pack of Camel Menthols off the shelf. I packed the box and opened it to the fresh smell of menthol tobacco hitting my nostrils. Donnie and Sydney were moving a couple shelves in front of the doors so we could block ourselves in for the night. I popped the menthol bead in the butt of the cigarette, put it in my mouth and lit it. I drew in that first inhale and realized the bliss that a Camel could be after having to smoke Marlboro 72's and Pall Malls for the last couple days. I did find it ironic however that before the world ended they were always out of Camel menthols, but now that it had they were chock fuckin' full of em.

Katie walked over to me and bummed one. We sat down against the cigarette display and held each other while we inhaled the sweet nicotine induced bliss. We didn't say a word… I kissed her on the top of the head and we sat there in silence. In the past couple days the world had turned over on its head, and I had forgotten exactly how nice it was to simply hold her in silence, especially considering even before the dead rose, neither of us ever shut the fuck up.

We put the cigarettes out on the floor and walked over to where everyone else was, hand in hand. Those of us who knew Roger were swapping stories about him, laughing at how much of a loveable dumbass he had been in life. I expected to see tears, but in a world where death waited around every corner it seemed a coping mechanism had began running its rusty gears in our minds and hearts, allowing us to go on, and enjoy the time we had had with him and those we loved in life. Besides, I bet most of us would've given anything to be in his place instead of ours. I always bitched and griped about how the world was hell and it was just getting worse… now I look back on those days and want to kick myself in the nuts repeatedly until I got the point to just enjoy what I had been given… Hell I think we all felt that way about ourselves.

I walked over to my dad who was standing by himself in front of the beer cooler, smoking a cigarette, seeming almost entranced by the cold brews held within the icy caverns of that freezer. "Y' Know… Its been over 10 years since a drop of the shit has passed my lips… and whats funny… is even in all this shit…. I still don't want it." he said as I walked up. "Well that's good dad…" I said, trying to console him, he turned to me and said, "You know… you two kids were the biggest cluster fucks I ever had the joy of being accompanied by.. Your brother was worse'n you was though… Hell I remember that time him and his friend slim went out to the building and found that big roll of copper wire and they was gonna go sell it for some spendin' money… and I didn't know where the hell they got it but I figured.. Hell I could use it for somethin'… And I bought it off em… for 35 fuckin dollars.. My own god damned wire.. That little shit…".. I laughed and said, "Yeah, I miss em too dad.."

After a while we all got some of the sleeping bags they had on display and passed em out amongst each other and slept right there in the middle of the store. We slept good that night… probably because we were fucking exhausted… but all in all it wasn't a terrible night. We got up around 9 or so in the morning give or take ten minutes from each person and ate breakfast. We all tried to concoct a plan as to where in the hell we were going to go and finally we settled on going down the highway and checking out Concord Mills and the surrounding buildings… granted even if the mall was empty which its actually a good chance it was, it would take forever to check every corner of that place… but then again it would take the things a hell of a long time to find us too.

We all mutually decided that even though the world had ended… and we may not have a lot of time left in this world… but we were gonna fuckin' enjoy the shit out of it while we could!

A/N: That's right! Theyre going to the Mills… we'll see where in the fuck this goes… because honestly at this point, I'm as in the dark as you guys are… Oh well… this should be fun!


	13. Chapter 13: Revelations

Chapter 13: Revelations of the Outside World

**Our idea to raid, party, and survive inside of the Concord Mills Mall shot down when we began picking up clues along our way to the destination, anything from signs, spray paint on bulletin boards, and even a looped radio broadcast. Apparently Concord Mills had been used as the Military survival hub for all surrounding population centers. Because Roger had been our driver, Donnie ended up taking over that for us. We drove along the highway in silence, just watching the miles pass us by. We drove past the Wal-Mart on our left and I chuckled to myself a little. It seemed someone else had gotten our same idea, and apparently had ended up zombie food because the front doors were open and zombies were kind of just milling around the front. The building still held signs of the survivors that once occupied it, like signs, large and painted with spray paint letting passers-by know they were alive inside and whatnot. Most of the way we found that not much had happened on this side of the highway, granted we had no idea what we'd find once we got up towards the speedway, but given that in every zombie movie I had seen and book I had read, no matter what highway it was, there was a massive gridlock, but over the last couple days I found that those movies didn't have everything right. **

**We got closer to the speedway and the destruction I expected elsewhere became evident. Overturned and wrecked military transport and assault vehicles littered the highway running by the speedway. As we came close up to the intersection we saw that it was gridlocked as far as we could see on the highway in front of us and beside us leading to the mall. Sydney hit us up on the walkie-talkie letting us know we were going to go through a small (but large enough for us to pass through) gap in the traffic and head towards the Starlight Regal Cinema.**

**As we drove down the highway we saw nothing but destruction. Apartment buildings were ablaze, zombies were feasting on people they had just pulled out of a barricaded office building, and the highway was littered with cars that had either crashed, or the drivers just got out and left the car where it was. It was a relatively short drive to the movie theatre, and the building itself was completely intact. There were only a few cars in the parking lot so Sydney pulled the front car in and we all soon followed.**

**Just like at Walgreens we got out and decided to try and hole up in the theatre. This time it was decided it would be as long as possible. We were running low on fuel, and aside from making a complete circle then heading towards Mint Hill and Charlotte, there wasn't much else we could do. We had stock piles of food, water and medicines, we had plenty of ammo and weapons to kill off any zombies that would wonder into the parking lot, and being that there was only one real way into the theatre that held any issue, it would be easy to barricade.**

**We pulled the cars up to the front and placed trash cans in front of the doors to hold them open. We carried in the pallets of canned food and water from my dad's truck, toted in the duffle bags of clothes, food and medicine, then we began bringing in the guns and ammo we had. Knowing we had passed the large group of zombies in the office park on the way here we decided to begin barricading as quickly as possible, just in case they had decided to follow us. But before we could do that we needed to check the place for any creepy crawlies that may already be inside, there were cars in the parking lot in all fairness.**

**We worked our way through the theatres coming up empty through most of them. So we decided to split up, sending one group back to start barricading, the others to check the rest. Me, Katie, My Dad and Cheese ended up on the team going to check the rest of the rooms. Considering that not only did we need to check theatres but supply closets, projection rooms, and bathrooms, we got straight to work. As we neared theatre 4 which above the door on a Marquee a sign read "Sex in the City 2", we began hearing some banging around inside. I walked up the door as quietly and cautiously as possible and opened it. Three zombies lurched out, one coming at me and the other two going after the others. I pulled up my pistol and fired, but nothing happened. I tried ejecting the casing but the gun jammed. I went for my other gun when I realized I had left it with the others so that everyone would have a gun. I reached behind me to grab my rifle when the thing gained on me to fast and knocked me over. It fell on top of me and struggled with me for a second before I gained leverage and rolled over on it. I grabbed my rifle and began slamming it into the creature's head until it finally went limp. I got up and wiped myself off while the others got through dealing with their issues. They had capped the two that came out at them but apparently two more were in the theatre and had snuck up on them. Cheese was just throwing the dead creature that had tackled him off, "God damned stinkin' ass! Git the fuck off me!". I pulled out a cigarette and lit it, helping Cheese up right after, "Damn man… Who in the fuck goes to a movie theatre to see a movie during the end of the god damned world?" I yelled looking at the zombies. Cheese caught his breath and said, "Hell, they could've at least gone to see somethin' good!… Jesus christ look at em! God damned movie bored em to death!"**

**We checked the rest of the theatres and rooms, but came up with no more zombies. We ended up finding a shit load of fountain drink refill bags, bottled water, candy bars, and pretty much anything else a theatre usually had. Granted some of it wouldn't last long, it would last a while anyway. **

**Once we made it to the front of the theatre again, the front doors had been secured with various heavy objects found around the building, but little did I know that Donnie had thought of bringing a portable torch with him and he welded the metal hand rails together to make a sustainable metalwork gate system. They had taken doors off of the theatre rooms themselves and put them over the glass, then took the metal gate work and welded it over the doors and to the doorframes around the glass. It would take a hell of a lot of force to get through that, not mentioning the use of a lot of heavy items from around the theatres put in front of all the metalwork just for a little extra oomph.**

**We went into each of the theatres to lock and secure the emergency exit doors with the plethora of locking mechanisms on each, and considering there wasn't a doorknob or handle on the other side of each door, there wasn't much chance of anything getting through. We pulled the microwaves out of the employee lounge and set them on the countertop of the concession stand so we could have a complete kitchen of sorts. **

**We eventually were able to settle down to a dinner of whatever canned food each person picked from the bags, or whatever food they found in the theatre. None of us really had much of an appetite still from the events of the previous day so we all just decided to chill out and do our own thing. The kids went into the game room, and the rest of us decided on watching a movie or something. My dad, Cheese, Donnie, and Sydney decided to stick around the main area to keep an eye on the kids and the situation at hand. They had found a ladder that let them half rooftop access so every now and then one of them would go up, look around and check things out, but for the most part we just relaxed. Most of the others went in to see **_**Killers**_** or **_**Prince of Persia**_**, but me and Katie opted to see**_** Iron Man 2**_**. We watched the movie and didn't say a word to each other, we just sat there, letting our minds and bodies rest, holding hands and leaning against each other. Something told me we wouldn't have much of a chance in the next coming hours. All I knew was, I wanted to enjoy the now…. Not think about what would happen next.**


	14. Chapter 14: Conversations in Starlight

**Chapter 14: Conversations In Starlight.**

After the movie ended, we sat there in the dark just holding each other's hand. I noticed Katie had gotten quiet, I looked over to her but couldn't read her expression in the gloom of the theatre. "Baby, is something wrong?" I asked her, and she wiped her eyes so I wouldn't see her crying. "Yeah… I'm worried about my mom… She works at the hospital you know… I haven't been able to reach her. I've tried calling her a lot but it just keeps going to voicemail.", I held her hand tighter and said "Babe… you know what the chances of… " And Katie cut me off… "Shut up Cameron! You don't know that! She could be holed up somewhere just the same as we are, and I'm not going to just give up hope on her that easily! She's my Mom!.". I stared at her, dumbfounded at myself. She hadn't said a word about her mom up until this point and honestly, none of us had really noticed, we had our own shit going on at the time, just as she had.

Katie said she was going to step out onto the roof, that she needed time to think. I couldn't blame her for that, Although I didn't mean for the conversation to turn the way it had, I just didn't want to give her false hopes. Her mom was a nurse at CMC which was one of the largest medical centers in Charlotte's surrounding areas. The chance that she got out of that place alive is a slim chance anyway, but considering she was in the middle of Charlotte… Escape just didn't seem plausible.

After a little while I followed Katie up to the roof and she apologized for the outburst. "Babe, don't worry about that," I said, "You're just stressed, same as we all are." She looked up at me and said "Like I said, I apologize for the outburst, but until I'm proven wrong, I won't believe she's dead Cameron… I can't. Granted I know her and I have had problems… and you of all people know I spent more time talking about moving out and never talking to her again, than I did talking to her about anything else… But I love her… She's my mom… No matter the problems… I just want her to be safe."

I walked over to her and hugged her tight, "I know you do… I know you do…". We stood on that rooftop together for a while, just looking at the stars and the moon. Even though the world was being taken from us, the sky was still up there… the stars still shined, and the moon still cast its silver rays down onto the landscape… It was a scene of peaceful serenity in a world gone mad. It gave me hope, I remembered saying that even the fucking sky falling down around me would never stop me from trying, granted I had miniscule thoughts in mind when I said that, I realized how much I really meant it. Fuck this giving up bullshit, I grew up listening to punk bands screaming about never giving up, and if you're going down, you fucking go down fighting, and looking up at that sky, I became more determined than ever.

We went downstairs after a while and laid down to sleep. We slept peacefully for once… It had been years since I had slept without nightmares, I guess with the world becoming one around us, there was no room or time left in my subconscious to create monsters. We woke up early the next morning too, ate breakfast, sat around and shot the shit for a while, then a few of us decided to go up top and check the situation.

As we reached the edge of the roof, we saw that the zombies we had seen the previous day, had indeed followed us and were now milling about in the parking lot. None were banging on the doors surprisingly, but it still sucked that they were standing around outside. It was then I got an idea. I went downstairs and got Nic and grabbed my rifle, and grabbed a spare one for him. I took him up on the roof with me. Sydney, My dad and Donnie were sitting around up there talking to each other, we walked past them and to the edge of the roof. "Alright Nic… Like I told you before… You need to learn to shoot well man. We may end up needing you out there… fuck that… I know we will." He smiled and nodded, "Alright what I want you to do is to start out with the easy ones. I want you to take a shot about halfway down the lot, and see how well you do, then we can see what we have to work with." The rifle he had was a 9 round clip-fed .22 rifle. I let him go until the clip ran out. Out of the 9 rounds he fired, he dropped 4. "Okay man, that was pretty good, but we need some practice outta you. I want you to reload and try again, you cool with that?", he nodded excitedly, "Fuck yeah I'm cool with that man, you just try not to cry when I get better than you… Ahem, Fag." I laughed and flipped him off, "Dude, if you could shoot this gun like you did your fuckin lips, then maybe we wouldn't be in the world of shit we are… fuck they wouldn't stand a chance. Hell I don't know… maybe we should go out there and make you tell some jokes… maybe they'd just surrender." He returned the middle finger and took aim. We shot for a few hours, and he got to where he was taking out a zombie with almost every shot. I was proud of the little fucker. He wasn't doing so damn bad after all.

About the time we were packing up, Katie came hauling ass out onto the roof. "Katie, what happened?" I said alarmed. She handed her phone to me and said, "My mom just called me! My mom just fucking called me! She was holed up in a resturaunt with some other people but she just said she's on her way home to get some things and she'll come here after!" I checked the phone and sure enough her mom had called, I was amazed. I guess now we just needed to play the waiting game… I always fucking hated that game,

A/N: Thanks for the reviews guys… Keep em coming!


	15. Chapter 15: Mother's Day

A/N: Hey people.. Yes it is me again.. Anyway hope you enjoyed the last chapter.. In this one.. As cheesy as it is, I'm going to be using a dream sequence… because I am constantly plagued by nightmares in real life so I figured.. This dude's supposed to be me.. Why the fuck not? It'll be italicized… just so you know… Anyway.. Enjoy!

**Chapter 15: Mother's Day**

We waited around for a while for Katie's mom to show up. She kept trying to call but it would either just ring to voicemail or a recording would say all circuits were busy and to try again later. I kept trying to talk to Katie and soothe her but she just kept saying she wanted time to herself, she was fine, and she'd come get me in a little bit. So after a while I decided to stop annoying her, which before the outbreak was my favorite past time and even after was still pretty fun, and went to check on the baby. My mom was again, too busy playing grandma with him and told me to go find something else to do. I searched through my things and found my Zune. I walked over to a corner and sat down looking through my artists, finally settling on The Exploited. I started the music and began listening to them yelling about hating things and whatnot and eventually I fell asleep.

_I opened my eyes and everything was as if it had been under siege and torn to pieces. I got up out of the corner, the headphones falling out of my ears and walked around. "Katie?… Mom?… Where the fuck are you guys?" I said as I surveyed the area. _

"_We're over here! Help!" I heard my mom scream from the open door of one of the theatres. I ran through the door only to find that the area was empty of people, but full of blood, and what had at one time been people… I heard something from behind me and turned. Katie stood there holding the baby, they were both dead._

_She smiled an evil grin, as did he… showing bared blood soaked teeth, "Daddy, someone's here to see you" She hissed._

"Daddy, someone's here to see you!". "FUCK!" I screamed, jumping backwards, trying to crawl into the wall. She jumped just as I did and the baby started crying. "She started soothing him and eventually he settled down. I explained the dream to her, and as customary to her, she began to laugh spastically at me. "Hey… fuck you man… that she scared the fuck out of me…" I said. "I couldn't scare you that bad if I tried any other fuckin' time! You gotta love that shit!" She said… still laughing. "Yeah, it was pretty epic… but still… fuck you…" We both kept laughing, and at this point the baby had walked over to me and sat on my lap. We sat there playing for a while when Katie's phone rang.

She answered the phone, "Mom calm down… I … I can't understand you. Look just stay where you are… we're coming to get you." She hung the phone up and ran into the theatre everyone had gathered in. I picked the baby up and followed her in.

Once she had our attention she explained, her mom had been hurt and couldn't drive, and she wanted to go get her. After discussing it, We decided that we shouldn't all go. Midland was not that far away, and we had a good set up here. We decided that Me, Katie, Cheese, and Donnie would go. The baby could stay back at the theatre with My parents and the other kids. We packed lightly for the trip, but enough that in case we got stranded, we'd be able to stick it out as long as possible. No one but Katie really saw the absolute point in going considering that she'd probably be dead when we got there, but also, on the sentimental level of things I understood entirely. I was cool with going as long as the baby was in no immediate danger. We got our weapons and everything and loaded up in the Hummer since it was armored and was in fact the closest vehicle. We had to go out of a back entrance and since Sydney, Donnie, and Cheese all had Nextel's we were able to set them to a walkie-talkie frequency with each other. When we got back we'd hit Sydney up and have him let us back in through the back entrance, considering there wasn't a door handle for us to break into if we had wanted to.

We drove out of the parking lot seeing that the zombies had, in majority, cleared out of the parking lot and seemed to be headed towards the mall. We drove towards I-485 and saw that it was strangely clear. Considering our exit was only a few away we figured we'd try it out, being that it was not only the quickest way but on our way through the outer skirts of Mint Hill we could check the gas stations for supplies. We drove down 485 seeing that, there really wasn't much of anything on the roads. There were a couple stalled cars but they were easily avoidable. There were no zombies in sight, at all.

We drove on until we saw the exit sign for Albemarle Rd, and turned up onto it. We drove to the top of the On-Ramp and saw that as Albemarle led closer to Charlotte, the destruction was definitely more noticeable. But in the direction we were traveling it seemed moderately smooth. As we drove on, we saw that the apartments to our left were under siege. The cars were almost gridlocked here so we had to drive down the median. Running toward us from our left we saw two people we thought were infected at first, but on closer inspection they were flagging us down and jumping around. I don't know about anybody else but, up to this point I hadn't seen a zombie do that… so if we stopped to check on these people and they were zombies… 10 points for creativity.

We pulled over and got out, holding guns to them. The woman wimpered and her dude friend got pissed off. "Are either of you bitten?" I asked walking around, "No we're not, now get the god damned guns off of us please." the guy said with a clear asshole sound to his voice. "Look dude… I don't know if you've noticed what the fuck is going on out here or not, but I would say for one thing, you ought to be fucking thanking us for stopping. Secondly, we don't wanna hurt nobody… but I damned sure am not about to save some people who, in a matter of hours, will decided to turn us into human fucking cans of Chef Boyardee!.", At this point the girl looked terrified, "I swear to god we're not bitten, please let us ride with you, we barely made it out of there." I looked at her and said, "You guys lived in those apartments I'm guessing?", "I did, she wrecked her car and came looking for help… I let her in cuz she was getting chased by those things. Now that you know our back story, can you help us please?" The guy said, sounding a little more docile now that he knew I wasn't taking his shit. "Yeah, that's fine… get into the back of the Hummer, but so help me god.. If either of you are lying I'll shoot you myself… I have a son I have to get back to… and trust me… his need of a father is more important to me than either of you.

They climbed into the back of the Hummer and we all introduced ourselves. Me and the guy Dan apologized to each other and everything cooled down from there. The girl explained she was a teacher at the elementary school right down the road, she had been getting some personal things from her classroom when she got attacked by a couple of those things. She was able to knock them out of her way and escape to her car, only the car died on her soon thereafter. The zombies had shown up in the complex about an hour ago, they tried to stick it out but the zombies found them and attacked. They were dragging people out of adjoining rooms, and banging furiously on Dan's door. They made it out onto his balcony just as they got through the door. The second floor drop luckily wasn't enough to break any bones, so they were able to run out into the street, which is where we ran into them. From there we drove on towards Midland with two more people in tow. None of us knew what waited for us there, but we'd damn sure find out soon enough.


	16. Chapter 16: Mother's Day Pt 2

**Chapter 16: Mother's Day Pt. 2**

We drove on down the road towards Midland. Casey, which was the girl we picked up, became a little more talkative at this point, not about the outbreak, or their situation so much, as her life before all of this. I mostly kept quiet and paid attention to the both of them. She, so far, seemed okay and all, she was married. She didn't know where her husband was but assumed she wouldn't be seeing him again, they didn't have kids because she was unable, which is why she became a teacher and so on and so forth.

Dan had been a mechanic in Mint Hill, he wasn't with anyone but had a kid with an ex. He honestly seemed like the garden variety piece of dog shit. He claimed he didn't have his kid because his ex was a bitch, yet the guy smelled like a walking cloud of weed and liquor. He had a kind of douche bag quality to everything he said, not to mention the fact I noticed him eyeballing Katie's titties a few times too many. I decided to keep the jealous nature aside for the time being considering we all had our own shit to deal with, but opted to myself that if it continued or progressed, he'd become a red stain on my fucking shirt.

We drove on down the road, and Katie moved closer to me and held my hand. I could tell she was scared, I also knew that we both knew the real reason this trip was being made to begin with. She squeezed my hand tight and whispered that she loved me as she laid her head on my shoulder. I looked outside and watched the world pass us by, while in the corner of my eye, I saw Dick Nugget giving me the evil eye. I again said to myself I would deal with it later.

We made it past all of the major housing areas and it had seemed as though the zombies had just abandoned the area, probably heading towards Charlotte and Mint Hill, but the sick feeling pitted in my stomach that it could just as easily be that they headed in the direction we were going.

Before the dead rose, Katie and I, being the dorks we were had plenty of conversations about this very subject. We went so far as to even have a list of things that we would have to do if certain situations would arise. And the sad, sick, bloated, and maggot infested truth was, that one of those "Certain Situations" had reared its ugly fucking head.

We agreed that if those we loved ever became infected, we would put them down ourselves, no matter what. We wouldn't want them to walk around as a fucking bag of reanimated puss and piss, and we damned sure wouldn't want anyone else to take them down. Granted, those ideas were thought of before the onset of this disease, and I know most survivalists would say that the trek we were on was pointless and retarded, and honestly it kind of was. But what is the point of survival in a world where sentiment means nothing? We could go on living, fighting to survive another day, for no good fucking reason but to breathe, and we would be just as bad as the things we're fighting against. That's my opinion anyway. I know the baby loves Katie's mom almost more than he loves us… and if by some miraculous chance she has survived and she simply injured her fucking ankle, I wasn't about to let her rot and die in her house.

We made it to our turn onto Bethel Church road after a while of driving, and made the turn onto the desolate stretch. Again, we saw none of the dead, at least none that were walking. Across the yard of one of the houses an entire family lay naked, and neat little bullet hole in the head of each one of them, and in toilet paper there was a sign at their feet that read, "We're here…". I gathered that more than likely it was probably the group of marauders that had attacked us at the Wal-Mart, especially considering there was an insignia painted in, what I'll guess was blood, that was an upside down cross with a crescent facing down on the uppermost leg of the cross. I had seen that on one of the other vehicles.

We drove on and finally made it to Peppercorn road, and we drove that final stretch to Katie's house. When we drove around her neighborhood, there were a few of the zombies walking around but for the most part the place was pretty barren. We drove around the curve and saw her house a little ways up. We saw her mom's car in the ditch with the driver's door standing wide open. We slowly pulled into the driveway, and Katie jumped out with her gun and began running up to her porch.

"Donnie, you guys stay here, do not fucking turn the jeep off. We may need to leave in a hurry.", I yelled as I jumped out and followed her up. We got inside and looked around. There was blood leading from the kitchen floor that we could see, and it began to lead around further in. I walked in front of Katie and told her to watch the back. We walked through her kitchen in near militant formation. We finally came upon her mom's door and heard banging on the other side. I kicked the door in and a zombie fell on top of me. Katie kicked it off of me and blew its head off. But it wasn't her mom.

I was standing up and dusting off when Katie screamed. Her mom had walked up behind her and grabbed her with those cold, dead hands of hers. Before her mom could bite down I separated them and threw her mom to the ground. I helped Katie retain her balance and looked at her, "Its time to do what you came here to do babe, we agreed, and I'm not doing this for you." She looked at me with tears in her eyes, "I know… It should be me who does it anyway…"

She wiped the tears out of her eyes, "I love you mom… I'm sorry…"

Her mom began to stand… snarling at her through barred, bloody teeth.

"I'm so fucking sorry…" and she pulled the trigger.

Her mom's head disappeared and she fell to the ground, as did Katie. I kissed her on the forehead and she said she needed a minute alone. So I began checking the rest of the house for anything we might need. I packed more diapers and wipes for the baby in one of his old diaper bags, grabbed him some toys, and began to pack food and I grabbed the Baby's reflux medicine from the medicine cabinet. I walked to the door and saw that Dan had gotten out and was stretching, Casey sat with her legs hanging out of the jeep and Cheese was smoking a cigarette. Katie came up behind me holding the bags I had missed and said "Lets go…". We walked out of the house and didn't look back.

As we came down to the car, Dan looked at us, "What the fuck took you so long? I thought we were coming to get your mom? Did we come all the way out here for nothing?…" I helped Katie into the car and turned and looked at Dan. "What? Is there a problem or something?".. I stared at him for a minute, and punched him in the face. When he dropped like the bitch I then told him he was I grabbed him by the throat and leaned over him. "Listen to me you smiley little fuck. Either you keep your god damned mouth shut, or I'll blow your fucking legs off and let those fuckers up the road come and get a piece of you." He looked at me, and spit in my face. I took Katie's shot gun from her and as he stood up I aimed down and shot him in the legs. He screamed and fell to the ground. Everyone in the truck just stared at me. I walked over to him, "I was gonna let it slide that you were checking Katie out… but I'd guess we can consider ourselves even… I don't have time for people like you, I'm helping people that matter to survive in this fucking place… and its funny, before the dead rose I always said people like you need to just fade out and fucking die… consider yourself a fuckin' martyr for the new world you miserable sack of shit.

I got back into the car as Dan screamed at me not to leave him there, Donnie backed out of the driveway and we drove onwards, back towards the theatre. No one said a word to me or Katie. Katie took my hand and kissed me… I was glad to see she didn't see me as a monster for that… And I pretty much just killed a man… So I wouldn't of blamed her if she had… But I think we all agreed we'd be better off without someone like him in the world… his only useful purpose had been saving Casey, and from what she says, he tried hitting on her the entire time… Either way his usefulness had come to its fruition and the only useful thing left was for him to lay down and die. This was the new world now… Our new world…

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the chapter… Thanks for the reviews!


	17. Chapter 17: Reinventing

**Chapter 17: Reinventing.**

As we rode on toward command central, I.E, the movie theatre, we rode in silence. I could feel everyone's eyes all on me at once, and then as quickly as they began, they all looked away into their own respective directions. I could feel from them that they didn't blame me, it was just that none of them had seen something like this coming, not from me at least. I pulled a cigarette out of my pack and lit it, inhaling the calming sensations of the nicotine. Strangely enough, it didn't help. I just felt weird… I felt wrong… I felt unlike myself. It was when I got a quick glance into the mirror that I began to realize why.

As stupid as it is, I have always been the type to need to not only be who I am… But I've also got to look how I want to look. Even in the brinks of the apocalypse I just didn't feel right. It had always been my connection to the outside world as well as the inside world, and at any point in time that I couldn't be who I was, be it physically or personality wise… I always felt the onset of depression and rage, at those who suppressed it within me, and myself for allowing them to do it.

As I sat there dwelling in my thoughts of self glorification, I heard a strange sound coming from the back of the Hummer. I turned around just in time to see that Casey had collapsed. I told them to stop the Hummer and jumped out, running around to the back to open the rear hatch. As I looked at her I noticed she had gone extremely pale. Veins were beginning to stand in black contrast to the white delicate flesh that held them.

She suddenly began to twitch. As she rose upward I noticed the cataract-like film that had began to cover her eyes. She was dead. Or as dead as dead got nowadays. She got herself turned around and she tried to lunge at me. Donnie, at this point had ran around to me. As I tried to grab my gun from Donnie, she tackled me to the ground. I held her up by the throat and before I could get the shot off, Donnie pulled his pistol and put one between her eyes. She fell over limp.

"I thought she wasn't fuckin' bitten!" Donnie yelled at me. "I checked her the fuck over! She wasn't bitten!. I retorted. Donnie began to yell back when I noticed a glimmering shine in the corner of my eye. I looked over towards it and saw something dangling from the girl's wrist. I bent down to look and saw instantly what it was. She was wearing a medical bracelet. The bracelet had an engraving that claimed her to have a severe heart murmur. This poor girl had had a heart attack and died, and we had been none the wiser. I dragged the girl over to the side of the road and told Donnie to get back into the truck. Upon a quick glance, we were attracting company, and I was in no mood to be the entertainment for the night, nor the main course for that matter.

We got back in and drove on out of sight before we could get caught up with. Where we had stopped was about a mile away from the exit onto I-485 which we was our way home, and ironically enough it had been only a stone's throw away from where we had initially rescued them. The sadness I felt for the poor girl deepened even farther at this realization.

It took us about 45 minutes to make the drive back to the theatre. As we pulled in we noticed the zombie population in the parking lot had thinned quite a bit. We were able to exit the hummer with our newly acquired items and make it around to the back to be let in. Donnie had to take point and shoot a few stragglers along the way but we got inside without a problem. Once we got inside I told everyone I needed some time to myself. I told them that if it was urgent, they were free to come in and get me, but if not, I would see them in a little while.

I walked over to where we had all of our duffel bags and whatnot and found the few I had. I brought them into the bathroom with me. I pulled out a set of electric barber clippers and some razors and went to work. I washed myself off in the bathroom sink as well as I could and began looking through my other stuff to see my options. I saw I had accidentally grabbed one of the food bags but noticed there was some Kool-aid and sugar, which gave me ideas. I decided to go the old school way and finish the Mohawk I had shaved with green kool-aid and some sugar water to make it stand, it was nice having the old "do" back. I started going through the clothes and "appropriating" certain items. After about 30 minutes or so I walked over to the mirror to see the damage. And what stood there was the old me, and I fuckin' loved it. I may have looked like a marauder from Mad Max or Doomsday, but god damnit I always had looked that way, and I don't see no fuckin' reason to change it now!

I had reinvented, no, reawakened myself, and god damnit it felt good. When I walked back out of the bathroom and let everyone have a look, they were majority speechless, save for my Mom, which said, "God damnit Cameron!, I swear to God I ain't going nowhere with you lookin' like that?", "What Mom? Are you scared the zombies won't like it or somethin?" I retorted. "No, I'm scared I'll turn around and shoot your ass by accident!". I just stared at her and laughed.

You Know.. Sometimes Parents Just Don't Understand…

A/N: Sorry for the lack of action but I felt I needed some development on my character… so far he's just been there when people needed him and for some humor.. But Again I say… If he's gonna be like me.. Then he's gonna fuckin' be like me! Hope you liked it! Thanks for the reviews!


	18. Chapter 18: Revenge for the Fallen

**Chapter 18: Revenge for the Fallen**

The days were quiet following our return home, or at least what was passing for it these days. Shortly after our return I called up a meeting of the minds and brought up the idea that we should post guards on the rooftop to change out every six hours so that we could have 24 hour surveillance on the situation outside. I had explained that since we planned to hold out here for a while it would be smart to watch our asses just in case those bastards back at the Wal-Mart had friends and that the idea they could find us isn't too difficult considering they seemed to have been military.

The idea ended up taking and all went as planned. Two people would go up and watch the areas but were advised not to shoot unless absolutely necessary considering our limited supply of ammunition and the limitless supply of those fucking things lurking about down below. They would come down and tell whoever was awake if anything strange had transpired, and just for secondary measure (because keep in mind… we were comprised majoritly of southern ass people… we weren't gonna have ourselves being compromised just because Cheese and Donnie decided since things were boring they'd catch some sleep up top.) we would check the security footage regularly, but since it only covered the front and backs of the buildings we still had to rely somewhat on word of mouth. It wasn't until about 3 days into our new ways that anything out of the ordinary happened. It wasn't anything major at first, but luckily they had the right mind to report it because otherwise, this story wouldn't be getting told right about now.

It was me and Donnie up on the roof that day. We noticed there was a car going by… not just any car… a camouflaged hummer. But considering this is pretty much Hickville it could of just been any "Good Ole' Boy" just trying to find some place to go. It wasn't until it passed by us a second, then third time the following day that we decided to take it absolutely seriously. We didn't exactly know what we were going to do about it but when the time came, we figured we'd take care of business.

About 3 days after the last sighting of the Hummer a caravan of about 3 came pulling into the parking lot while Cheese and Donnie were on watch (Heh, go figure… and earlier on I had just been talking shit about how unreliable they may be… I am a dick.) and they came down and got us. My mom stayed behind with the kids and the rest of us went up top. They pulled alongside the front of the building, flattening a bunch of the zombies as they did, and got out and began shooting the lot of them. We watched in stunned silence as the zombies were decimated in just mere minutes by the muzzle flashes of their guns. When the last body fell the one who seemed to be the leader pulled a bullhorn seemingly out of his ass and turned it on.

"This is Major Charles Garrety, Citizens of the theatre, we need your assistance!" he put down the bullhorn and lifted his hand to his ear awaiting a response from us, he obviously knew we were up there. My dad pulled a bullhorn, also seemingly out of his ass, and replied with, "The fuck you need General?". "Its Major… Major Charles Garrety… Me and my men here need somewhere to rest for a while… we've been separated from our main unit and have little to eat and drink. We've been looking around for a while and have yet to find anywhere safe that could supply us. We have plenty of ammo and would be willing to barter with you!". My dad chewed it over and pulled the bullhorn back up "Well, Major, is it? We ain't been havin' too much luck in the ways of visitors as of late… Especially not those of the military persuasion. I am sorry to report to you that we will have to respectfully decline your offer for the better safety of those in this theatre." The Major chewed this over having plenty of difficulty processing the obvious sarcasm which he had not expected. He obviously didn't know my dad very well. "So you're the people who killed over 13 of my men down in that Hicktown Wal-mart, aren't you?" the Major retorted, "Well, so you know, what you did was punishable by death, you know? Being death dealers to the United States Army… especially in a state of martial law. But we're willing to look past it if you'd be willing to hand over some of the contraband you so graciously stole from a public facility." My dad, being the proud man he is, chewed it over yet again and spit back his own retort, "We are those "Death dealers" as you so kindly refer to us Mr. Major… now I don't know if you've noticed… but martial law was about a fucking week ago… there is no law now.. Only survival… and if you want survival, I'd suggest you take your pansy ass fuckin' dick knocker squad and get the fuck out of here. " After those words, the first shot was fired and the first body fell, that body being Sydney. The bullet punctured his throat and sprayed most of us with his blood. His body falling was the slowest thing I had ever seen happen. For when it hit the rooftop, War broke out.

I pulled my pistol and put a bullet in Sydney's head, so we didn't have two fucking problems to deal with. And in the space of the second it took me to do this, We had already taken out 3 of those "Dick knockers" as my Dad had so eloquently put it. The fight continued and although we were all shooting to survive, for my dad and the major, it was extremely personal. I walked over to the edge with my rifle and began taking shots, Katie chimed in then right beside me. We had taken out three or four a piece when another two hummers came pulling around the bend and into the parking lot. Lucky enough for us, (or unlucky, I'm still not sure which it was.) the zombies had began pouring into the parking lot again, and had begun to attack the unaware soldiers. I threw my sights over to the advancing vehicles and tried to take out the drivers. I succeeded in shooting one in the throat and he swirved the vehicle too quickly, flipping it, and killing everybody inside. The second swirved around the wreckage and the soldiers quickly jumped out to cover the Major and the final few still standing with him. Along with their casualties we were struck with a few of our own, Donnie had been shot and fell over the rooftop railing while Cheese had been shot threw the center of his forehead.

My Dad and the Major after ducking many-a-shot from each other finally found their marks… well slightly anyway. The Major fired and shot my dad in the shoulder, and in the recoil of the shot my dad got lucky and found his bead dead center in the general's chest. He fell over like he was having a heart attack and the zombies were on him in an instant. The other few were in their final death throes and trying to kill themselves before the zombies could finish the job for them… and luckily, the soldiers didn't succeed. Even if a few more zombies entered the world… It was nice to see them pay for the blood shed.

Once we were done clearing the area, making sure more weren't on the way me and Katie helped my Dad downstairs so we could get the bullet out and bandage him up. We laid him down on the floor and grabbed one of the med kits. I dipped my K-BAR knife in some alcohol and dug the bullet out of him with as little damage to the tissue surrounding as I could. I looked at my Dad and said, "This is about to suck really bad… Just wanted you to know…" and I poured alcohol over the wound. I had put my K-BAR on the little portable griddle to get it as hot as possible and finally seared the wound shut. I bandaged him up for padding and let him rest. My mom sat with him and Katie and I took the kids to one of the theatres so we could give them some alone time.

I went up to the projection room and turned the movie on, it was some cartoon flick or something, and I just let it play. I came back into the theatre and sat down.

In the end we lost about ¼ of the actual battalion we had… and my dad was gonna be pretty much useless unless we were just in dire need of some serious fucking humor, Donnie… poor fuckin' Donnie…. He fell off the roof and right into the hands of those fucking things… There wasn't even enough of Donnie left to become a zombie when they were done… and he had screamed the entire time. It hadn't been able to hit me until I was able to be in my own thoughts… but I felt so bad for him. I said a prayer for all those we had lost and hoped there was someone left up top to hear them. It gave me hope to think there was something after this, considering I don't see the world being rebuilt any time soon…. And who the fuck knows how long those things'll walk around… as long as we're alive, they won't run out of food… and theyre dead… theyre fucking dead so they don't NEED the food anyway so how long will they last? And will they outlast us?…I laid my head back and looked at the ceiling… because I didn't feel as though the newest animated release from Disney or Pixar was really going to help anything right now… I just wanted to think…

A/N: Its been a while and the last chapter I wrote sucked, but even so, I hope you liked this one. I am to be writing a crossing story to this story soon, and it will inevitably end up leading to the climactic end of this story, so in other words it isn't a spin off… they coincide. Hope you like it…. Let me know your thoughts.


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